Much of the Louvre museum in Paris reopened to visitors on Wednesday morning after being closed for several days following an extensive burglary of the building on Sunday morning.
Only the Apollo Gallery, the location of the theft and the subject of an ongoing police investigation, remained closed.
Just hours before the reopening, the museum’s director faced questions from French senators over how thieves stole jewels of immense historical importance and an estimated value of €88 million ($102 million).
The robbery prompted renewed scrutiny of security measures at French museums, following two similar thefts elsewhere in September, and revealed years of laxity and neglect in security measures at the world’s most visited museum.
President Emmanuel Macron ordered the “intensification” of security measures at the Louvre during a meeting of cabinet ministers on Wednesday, according to government spokeswoman Maude Brezon.
Home Minister says investigation is in ‘progress’
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told French media on Wednesday that the investigation was “in progress” and that more than 100 investigators had been deployed.
“I am confident, it is certain, that we will find the culprits,” Nunez said.
Given the possibility of melting the gems and selling them, whether this cargo will ever be recovered may prove to be another question entirely.
The thieves stole eight pieces, including an emerald and diamond necklace that Napoleon I had given to his wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diamond tiara that once belonged to Empress Eugenie.
The thieves, believed to be an organized crime group, dropped a diamond-encrusted tiara while going through the ladder they had used to reach the external window of the Apollo Gallery.
Paris prosecutor Laure Becuau said Tuesday that the financial loss was “extraordinary” but that the greater damage was done to France’s historical heritage.
Les Cars, director in the Senate, after an alleged offer of resignation
As visitors lined up outside the historic glass pyramid on Wednesday, Louvre director Laurence des Cars was preparing to appear before the Senate’s culture committee that afternoon.
The robbery came just months after a staff strike at the facility and amid promises of a major overhaul, with workers warning of understaffing and lack of security amid a sharp increase in visitor numbers.
Questions are expected to be raised about the safety of the cars in the Apollo Gallery, as the museum has complained in the past about slow repairs and lack of monitoring. However, the museum on Tuesday defended the quality of the display cases broken in the robbery, saying they were installed in 2019 and “represented a considerable improvement in terms of security” compared to their more than 50-year-old predecessors.
french daily le figaro Des Cars – the first woman to run the Louvre, appointed in 2021 – reportedly offered her resignation after the robbery, but it was rejected.
This high-profile crime comes amid greater attention to two other robberies at French cultural sites in September.
The Louvre itself has been a rare target for criminals in France, except perhaps the most famous art theft more than a century ago.
In 1911 a former employee of the Louvre stole the Mona Lisa from the gallery, an act that helped propel the painting to modern fame. He was caught trying to sell the painting in his native Italy in 1913 and the following year the painting was returned to the Paris facility.
Edited by: Jennifer Cimino Gonzalez